


An Affair in Black and White

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: F/M, Nude Photos, Photographs, Photography, Photography as foreplay, boudoir photos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15206399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Jupiter hasn't done any photography the old-fashioned way in a long time. When Trixie agrees to pose for him, the results are everything he hoped for and more.





	An Affair in Black and White

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



That one. Jupiter reaches for a familiar vintage camera from his wide collection. He takes it into the darkroom, fishes the canister out of his pocket, and is pleased to discover that he can still load film by touch in the dark. He’d practiced for ages as a kid, but it’s been a long time.

There’s a knock on the trailer’s outer door. Jupiter exits the darkroom. “It’s open!” he calls.

Trixie bounces up the steps and into Headquarters. “What’s up?” she asks as she closes the door behind her. “That note you left on my car was kind of mysterious. Why did you want me to park halfway around the block? What’s up with that secret gate in your fence?”

“And here I thought you liked mysteries,” he teases. “Hence the cryptic communique. We used to use ‘Red Gate Rover’ all the time to get here without being spotted by Aunt Mathilda.” She understands that when Jupe says “we”, he’s referring to The Three Investigators, his young cohorts, the same way he knows understands Trixie’s “we” means The Bob-Whites of the Glen, her own youthful clique.

“I was hoping you’d let me take some pictures of you,” Jupe tells her, hefting the camera. “And I’ll print you copies, if you like.”

“Pictures of me? Why?”

“I haven’t taken any pictures in ages. With film, I mean.” If she ever saw how many candid pictures he has of her on his phone, she’d probably think he was a creeper. “I thought if you didn’t mind, I could get a few portrait shots, and if you ever decided you want to get into acting for real….”

She laughs at that, and Jupiter presses the shutter button. Trixie laughing is one of his favorite things; her wide smile, the way her blue eyes crinkle at the corners, that wonderful sound that’s half squeaky giggle, half throaty chuckle….

“Did you just--?”

“Oops…that was an accident,” he lies.

“Where did you want to go to take pictures?”

“Right here is fine.” She looks around dubiously. “It’s okay, I’m using black and white film, so the pattern on the drapes won’t really show up. Just you. Smile!”

He makes it look more complicated than it is on purpose, making conversation to get her to relax. Trixie doesn’t get why he wants to take her picture, she doesn’t understand how beautiful she is, how much he wants to just look at her, even when she isn’t there. She doesn’t realize that when she talks about having lunch with old Mr. Przewalski across the street, her face lights up as she recounts the stories he’s told her. Jupe has been hearing them since he was knee-high, but to Trixie, they’re new and fascinating. 

“That’s what you should do!” she says in the middle of a tale of Mr. P. working as a hotel porter during the Depression.

“Drop a lemon off the roof?” Jupe has heard about that particular prank before.

“No--take his picture! He’s such a great old guy, and it’s terrible that he doesn’t have any family. I’ve been recording some of his stories on my phone, because he’s such a hoot, and it would be awful if they were just lost when he’s gone, but there ought to be pictures, too.”

Her big blue eyes implore him to say yes, and it’s impossible to say no to her. “Great idea,” he agrees. It is, he has to admit, and not only from the way her face lights up.

Has he captured her dimple? The tilt of her head, the way her broad cheekbones taper to a pointy little chin, like a feline or a fae…(and isn’t it absolutely perfect that her birthday is May 1st, traditionally a time when the fairies run wild?)? Of course, she’s so marvelously herself, a walking bundle of contradiction: sweetness and sarcasm mixed with enthusiasm and stubbornness. Jupiter halfway expects that when he develops the film, it’ll show empty air; magical creatures can’t be photographed. 

A little while later, when Trixie yawns a little and stretches, lithe as a cat, he records the pose, trying to keep his face neutral. (He feels like an old-time cartoon character, eyes bulging like hard-boiled eggs.) Then she reaches up and pulls out the clips holding her curly hair out of her face. She shakes her head, and it falls in soft ripples to her shoulders. More writhing. She’s doing it on purpose! “You little minx.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” She blinks up at him with the look of a kitten that’s just found and claimed the creamer.

A click. The Look is immortalized, and her grin gets a little wider.

“Why do I have the feeling,” she muses, “that you’re thinking about the photos you’d rather be shooting? Hmm?” She leans forward, and before he realizes what she’s doing, she’s straightened up with her shirt in her hand. “How’s that? Better?”

Holy smoke. She has on a perfectly respectable sports bra, but still. Jupe can’t answer; the blood has left his head, although there’s enough still reaching his hand for two more shots.

“It’s about the same as if I had on a swimsuit,” she comments. “What do you think? Could I be a swimsuit model?” She doesn't mean it, though she lifts up her hair, the classic pin-up pose of hands behind her head….

Look through the lens, Jupe tells himself desperately. Hide behind the camera. Too late. She isn’t looking at the camera, she’s looking through it, directly at him. He can hardly breathe.

With two thumbs hooked into her waistband, she raises the stakes, shorts sliding down her thighs to puddle on the floor. Her bra is blue, her panties are green. In black and white, the difference probably won’t be obvious, but he’ll never see those prints without remembering. He gets a few more pictures of her in the bunk, posing, he tells himself. Being playful, because that’s her nature.

There’s something wrong with the camera, damn it.

“I think you’re out of film,” she tells him and giggles. “Put that darn thing down and get over here.”

Who is he to argue with her? She’s cast her spell, and he can only obey.

Much later, when he develops the photos, he discovers that he has indeed captured his essential Trixie. The pictures aren’t the everyday girl that everyone else sees; the fearless sprite that looks out of the images is someone only Jupiter is familiar with. She gazes at him from the paper the same way she’d regarded him during the photo session…he might have been behind the camera, but it was she who’d looked through the lens, to him, into his heart.

…


End file.
